Polyps, abnormal growths or tumors that may project from a mucous membrane, for example the body lumen wall of the nose, gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and the uterus may be known to occur and in some cases may be an important precursor to cancer Colorectal polyps found in the colon or rectum of the GI tract may be known to be a precursor for colorectal cancer. The known long pre-malignant stadium of colorectal cancer and the known high survival rate after polyp removal may enable efficient prevention of colorectal cancer by systematic screening and timely removal of colorectal polyps. Manual screening procedures or methods, for example, screening procedures to screen for colorectal polyps found in the colon or rectum are known.
Manual polyp screening methods may include imaging a body lumen wall, for example, the entire length of the colon or the entire GI tract with a stream of image frames and manually reviewing the stream to detect and/or identify in one or more image frames showing any visible morphologic changes to the membrane of the body lumen wall.
Devices and systems for performing in-vivo imaging, for example, of body lumen walls are known in the art. Such devices may include, inter alia, various endoscopic imaging systems, computed tomography (CT) devices, and x-ray imaging devices.
Typically, the stream of image frames captured during a screening procedure, for example a colorectal polyps screening procedure may be lengthy so as to covet substantially the entire area of the colon and rectum. Manually reviewing all image frames may be tedious as well as undesirable and inefficient as a quick screening procedure to indicate the presence of polyps or to indicate the probability that polyps may be present in a body lumen. In addition, the visibility of a polyp may be subtle and a health professional may miss the occurrence of one or more polyps when reviewing a lengthy stream of image flames.
Known polyp screening procedures typically require cleansing preparation and insufflation. Insufflation may stretch and flatten a polyp so that it may be difficult to detect a polyp. In addition, the cleansing preparation and insufflation may be unpleasant for the patient and may result in patients avoiding undergoing such a procedure.